Counting Down to 30: 1980-4
I keep finding myself thinking I haven’t really recapped the last decade, despite a few lists and things here and there, nearly as thoroughly as I really wanted to, but it struck me that maybe rather than just focus on those years, as I have one of those freaky landmark birthdays coming up, it might be interesting to try and do a recap of all the years I’ve been on the planet. I’ve left it too late to do a year a day, but since I barely remember anything before 1985-6, it makes sense to begin with a bunch-up of my babyhood years. I have spent no thought on how these entries are going to be structured or what I plan for them to contain, so it’ll just be whatever occurs to me on looking at what evidence I have LOL. Maybe you’ll learn something new about me… maybe I will, lol…
1980 was the year I was born and the year my dad died. That actually kind of shocks me because I always thought he died later, I just looked it up and it was November (I was born in February). So I never even got a Christmas with him. Crazy. Don’t feel bad for me… I’ve had a long time to get over whatever a 9-month old can feel about such a thing :) Ronald Reagan became the US president, Margaret Thatcher was (and would be for the first decade of my life) the British Prime Minister; John Lennon and Alfred Hitchcock died; there were 2 billion fewer people on the planet than there are now.
In 1981 Charles and Diana married. I don’t really remember it, but I guess it was still the biggest royal wedding there has been in my life so far.
John Hinckley tried to kill Reagan to impress Jodie Foster. I’d know nothing about this for about 20 years when I listened to Stephen Sondheim’s Assassins and read Buddy Foster’s biography of Jodie.
This was where we lived for the first 10 years of my life:
(when it was being built, obviously…)
In 1982 the Falklands War started… I still hardly know anything about this conflict lol, except a lot of people talked about it when I was little. Channel 4 launched in the UK. A whole four channels, gee! Time gave “Man of the Year” to the computer. John Belushi died.
In 1983 Reagan’s “Star Wars” began… I don’t know a lot about this either, except again I heard the phrase a lot on the news when I was little and got really confused. OK this is a surprise to me: the Nintendo Famicom/NES was first released this year. I would not see one for about another 7 years LOL? McDonald’s introduced the McNugget.
In 1984 the Apple Mac was introduced. This would mean nothing to me for nearly 20 years, but it would eventually mean a lot to me :) Tommy Cooper, who I loved when I was little, died live on TV. Pretty sure I missed that one. O-Levels were replaced with GCSEs but grandparents would continue to call them O-Levels even when my generation took them over 10 years later LOL. That Christmas everybody was listening to Band Aid. It wasn’t quite as bad as George Orwell thought.
Movies that might’ve meant anything to me at the time and still mean a lot to me today include The Fox and the Hound, E.T., Supergirl, Splash and The Karate Kid. My personal Best Picture nominees for these years now would be The Ninth Configuration [1980], The Fox and the Hound [1981], The Wall or Shoot the Moon [1982], Yentl [1983], and Once Upon a Time in America [1984]. Johnny Carson was still hosting the Oscars. I’m still really discovering music from this period, the only thing that stands out as meaning anything to me at the time and now is the 1982 Christmas album by the St. Winifred’s School Choir. I don’t know if we got it right on its release but I don’t remember a Christmas without it :)
OK a whole bunch of that came from Wikipedia but, like I said, I don’t really have many personal stories from these years. I meant to post this yesterday. I will try to do 1985 today :)
